They were scarce more than six hundred feet from the cataract.

Then their thunders burst on the air and several cannon shot swept over the "Terror" without hitting its low-lying deck.
The sun had set, and through the twilight the moon's rays shone upon us from the south.

The speed of our craft, doubled by the speed of the current, was prodigious! In another moment, we should plunge into that black hollow which forms the very center of the Canadian Falls.
With an eye of horror, I saw the shores of Goat Island flashed by, then came the Isles of the Three Sisters, drowned in the spray from the abyss.
I sprang up; I started to throw myself into the water, in the desperate hope of gaining this last refuge.

One of the men seized me from behind.
Suddenly a sharp noise was heard from the mechanism which throbbed within our craft.

The long gangways folded back on the sides of the machine, spread out like wings, and at the moment when the "Terror" reached the very edge of the falls, she arose into space, escaping from the thundering cataract in the center of a lunar rainbow..